Basing his distribution of the human race on the principle that the characters of the hair and complexion are more permanent, and of greater value as a means of classification, than the bony structure of man, Professor Huxley traces back the numerous varieties of tribes and races into what, for the present, may be regarded as four primary groups.
Commencing, for the convenience of my present subject, with the highest, or those which have shown themselves most capable of development—which, in all probability, is the wrong end of the scale to begin with, if we regarded them in their natural succession—the first of these groups is what he terms Xanthochroid type (the distribution of which is marked
in the map), a people characterized by yellow hair and fair complexions, with blue eyes, who form a strong element in the composition of the population of this country and a great part of Europe, extending from thence through Scandinavia and Central Europe eastward into Northern India. Next to these he classes the great Mongoloid race (marked by various shades of
on the map), with yellow-brown complexions and black hair and eyes, of which the Kalmucs and Tartars represent the purest types, occupying the whole of Northern Europe and Asia, from Lapland to Behring Strait, and down to the southernmost parts of China; including also the Esquimaux, the Polynesians, and the whole of the inhabitants of the two continents of America. Thirdly, the Negro race (marked
and
in the map), long headed, with woolly hair, which has its head quarters in all that part of Africa south of the Sahara, but has outlying branches widely detached, and occupying a broken line of islands extending in a belt, from the Andaman Isles in the Bay of Bengal, to the peninsula of Malacca, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and the adjoining isles, and having its southmost limits in the distant island of Tasmania. Lastly, we come to the Australioid race (marked